Well, eat my wedgie, Batman—it’s obvious Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey isn’t about to let Florida Gov. DeSantis steal the limelight with his hating on the LGBTQ community, Texas isn’t going to upstage him with more severe abortion laws, he’s not about to let other GOP governors suppress more voters of color, and he sure as hell isn’t going to let Trump take all the credit for killing lotsa people with Covid. He’ll show them all—in one day.
That’s right, just as Arizona is turning purple, tipping over into the blue zone, Republican Gov. Ducey approved four hateful measures in one day, sent to him by a legislature dominated by retrograde bumblefucks grasping at the last straw of evangelical male whiteness. Their days are numbered, they know it, hence:
In a move against transgender youth in Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey signed new laws barring them from participating in girls’ and womens’ sports, and from obtaining gender reassignment surgery. www.azmirror.com/...
Gov. Ducey said he’s very concerned about the mental health of children, and by signing this bill he’s sending a message that Arizona is concerned about youths who are “struggling with gender confusion.” No, just no. Stop it!
But he was just warming up, just getting started on today’s carousel of intolerance.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday signed a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy in almost every circumstance, a contingency plan to limit the procedure as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to rule on what could be a precedent-altering case.
In signing the bill, Ducey continues an unbroken record enacting every abortion restriction that has landed on his desk in his eight years in office. www.azcentral.com/...
By “almost every circumstance” the article means there are no exceptions for women who are victims of rape or incest. The only exemption is if the fetus endangers the mother’s life. That’s big of them. Longtime abortion critic Cathi Herrod, who runs the Center for Arizona Handmaid’s Policy, said the measure “also protects women who will be spared the emotional and physical harms of abortion.” I’ll just let that swing from the coat hangers.
So let’s find even more ways to inflict miserable deaths:
Two years after declaring an emergency in response to what was then a newly emerging COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Doug Ducey is rescinding that declaration, along with a host of public health policies implemented to curb the spread of the virus. www.azmirror.com/...
Ducey’s Covid response has been abysmal and deadly, so why change now? Today he declared the public health emergency over, everything’s hunky dory. What a crock of batshit! Arizona has the third-highest Covid death rate in the nation, and the “hard work” Ducey celebrated in his announcement killed nearly 30,000 people and infected more than two million. Arizona was doing fine in the pandemic’s early months, then Trump came to town in May 2020 to visit a mask factory (maskless, natch), and urged Ducey to “open up” for business. Ducey crawled as far up Trump’s ass as he could, ended most Covid restrictions, and the state blew up—for a while the hotspot of the fucking world. Ever since it’s been one deadly spike after another. It’s not over, and new variants might appear, but Ducey ended all mandates, restrictions, and hospital reporting requirements. See no Covid ...
Just in case all these crazy-ass bills might encourage more Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans who are paying attention to turn out this November and exorcise the filth from the Arizona legislature:
More Arizonans would need to prove their citizenship to vote, even in federal-only elections, under a bill signed on Wednesday by Gov. Doug Ducey.
House Bill 2492, sponsored by Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, tightens up rules regarding proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Arizona law already requires such proof to vote in state elections. www.azcentral.com/...
There’s so much to pick apart with this dystopian monstrosity that I won’t start a long list at the end of a diary—just to mention critics say it’ll purge hundreds of thousands of voters who have old driver’s licenses or no passport. It also runs afoul of federal law, which Arizona discovered in 2013 when they tried the same thing and the Supreme Court squashed it. Sure, it’s a different Court, which the Republicans are banking on.
The right is just getting started with voter suppression. Arizona has had early voting and mail-in voting since 1991, and the majority of voters use it and like it; nor have there been any substantial fraud claims. But gawdalmighty, Trump lost Arizona in 2020 when 89% of voters took advantage of early or mail-in voting, so it must be fraudulent! Tribal communities in particular depend on mail-in ballots, and their tremendous turnout in 2020 helped flip the state, so last month the troglodytes filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court asking them to declare early and mail-in voting unconstitutional. Meanwhile, QAnon peckerhead Mark Finchem is running for Secretary of State so he can oversee elections—starting with decertifying 2020. The Cyber Ninjas’ “audit” was just the appetizer.
Clearly Ducey and the knuckle-dragging boob squad at the legislature don’t remember the millions of dollars Arizona lost in cancelled conventions, business relocations, and tourist boycotts when racist Gov. Ev Mecham rescinded MLK Day in 1987. That economic black eye was on Republican Gov. Jan Brewer’s mind in 2014 (the business community reminded her), when she vetoed an anti-LGBTQ bill sent to her by the homophobes at the legislature, many who still take up space there. Never thought I’d miss Brewer.